Platy fry surprise. Help?

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With my fry I have found that the more hiding places my tank has the better. My birthing tank is nearly all different sizes of fake plants and driftwood. that tank has tons of fry aging from newborn to six months. My fry have fry. i get so many i sell them on ebay. Like I've said before, I don't move my fry away from momma fish, I just overfeed. What I do is feed two times a day. At the beginning of every feeding I start with a few shakes of the food. I watch the adults come up and eat it all. I add more food but this time I crunch it up into as small of flakes as possible. The adults still eat some of it, but some of it falls to the bottom. Here's my fry saving trick: I then add one more shake of full size flakes. The adults are more interested in the new food, and the fry swim out from their hiding spots and eat the crushed food off of the bottom. I also have some red cherry shrimp so anything the fry don't eat gets cleaned up later by the shrimp. Disclaimer: this tank I'm referring to is a 15g tank and it is way overstocked with platy momma and fry. What fry I don't sell I move to my 55g tank once they reach nearly full size. I move the mommas back to the 55g tank after a few days of them becoming round instead of squarish. But I have a 40g filter on this 15g tank, plus Otos and shrimp to keep it clean. I do at least 25% pwc per week. If you wanna try it my way and have questions you are more than welcome pm me. I'd be glad to help or send photos, whatever would help. I have found that it is really fun to breed different colors of males and females to see what I get! Plus I happen to live Platys!
 
That is really awesome! Sounds like a great method and obviously works really well for you. I really like the idea of it. Thanks for all the details!

When I set up this tank I was careful to select all females. Being very new to this I wanted to avoid the complications of baby fish. Now I'm kind of excited about breeding and raising fry. Once i'm comfortable with this first tank and feel like I have the hang of it id like to get another tank set up in the future and it'd be fun to try your method. We'll see how it goes! For now I'm just hoping to get my one little fry survivor through!
 
kdklovesfish said:
With my fry I have found that the more hiding places my tank has the better. My birthing tank is nearly all different sizes of fake plants and driftwood. that tank has tons of fry aging from newborn to six months. My fry have fry. i get so many i sell them on ebay. Like I've said before, I don't move my fry away from momma fish, I just overfeed. What I do is feed two times a day. At the beginning of every feeding I start with a few shakes of the food. I watch the adults come up and eat it all. I add more food but this time I crunch it up into as small of flakes as possible. The adults still eat some of it, but some of it falls to the bottom. Here's my fry saving trick: I then add one more shake of full size flakes. The adults are more interested in the new food, and the fry swim out from their hiding spots and eat the crushed food off of the bottom. I also have some red cherry shrimp so anything the fry don't eat gets cleaned up later by the shrimp. Disclaimer: this tank I'm referring to is a 15g tank and it is way overstocked with platy momma and fry. What fry I don't sell I move to my 55g tank once they reach nearly full size. I move the mommas back to the 55g tank after a few days of them becoming round instead of squarish. But I have a 40g filter on this 15g tank, plus Otos and shrimp to keep it clean. I do at least 25% pwc per week. If you wanna try it my way and have questions you are more than welcome pm me. I'd be glad to help or send photos, whatever would help. I have found that it is really fun to breed different colors of males and females to see what I get! Plus I happen to live Platys!
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Great idea. Love the trick with shaking the food. I have a 10g with guppies that i am breeding. I have plenty of fake plants, tightly packed together and a bit of driftwood with some Taiwan Moss growing around it. I have traps and try and get the females before they drop. I've been doing ok so far, 50 fry in the first 3wks....
 
Zissou said:
That is really awesome! Sounds like a great method and obviously works really well for you. I really like the idea of it. Thanks for all the details!

When I set up this tank I was careful to select all females. Being very new to this I wanted to avoid the complications of baby fish. Now I'm kind of excited about breeding and raising fry. Once i'm comfortable with this first tank and feel like I have the hang of it id like to get another tank set up in the future and it'd be fun to try your method. We'll see how it goes! For now I'm just hoping to get my one little fry survivor through!
Click to expand...

Doesn't sound like you'd need another tank. You said you just have three female Platys? Once you're ready add one male that you watch chasing females at the LFS. For the sake of your female's sanity keep your ratio one male per three females. Platys are super poopers, so I also recommend some kind of small shrimp. Ghosts are really cheap and are great poop and extra food cleaners. Maybe even three or so Otos to keep down the algae. Then watch the magic fry making machines go!
 
Ian086 said:
Great idea. Love the trick with shaking the food. I have a 10g with guppies that i am breeding. I have plenty of fake plants, tightly packed together and a bit of driftwood with some Taiwan Moss growing around it. I have traps and try and get the females before they drop. I've been doing ok so far, 50 fry in the first 3wks....
Click to expand...

It's all about shaking the food. The adults go nuts for that sound!!

You're doing great! What are you going to do with all those guppy fry? Unless they are the super fancy kind most LFS don't give you much if anything for them and IMO you should wait until they are at least half the size of the adults before you sell them online due to shipping.
 
kdklovesfish said:
It's all about shaking the food. The adults go nuts for that sound!!

You're doing great! What are you going to do with all those guppy fry? Unless they are the super fancy kind most LFS don't give you much if anything for them and IMO you should wait until they are at least half the size of the adults before you sell them online due to shipping.
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They are just regular guppies, my mate in the lfs ask me to breed them and he'd give me $1.30 each. I had all the stuff to do it anyway, spare tank, filters, guppies, so i'll give it a go and see how we get on. That's store credit he's giving me...
 
Ian086 said:
They are just regular guppies, my mate in the lfs ask me to breed them and he'd give me $1.30 each. I had all the stuff to do it anyway, spare tank, filters, guppies, so i'll give it a go and see how we get on. That's store credit he's giving me...
Click to expand...

That's a great deal!! I would take store credit for my platys at $1.30 each. I sell my platys on eBay for $3 per 10 but they pay $16 for shipping and my cost including all the stuff needed to ship cost me only like $12. So that's like $0.70 each. But really it's not about selling them for me. I just enjoy breeding them and watching them go from eyes with tails to grown platys. It's love. Platy love. ;)
 
kdklovesfish said:
Doesn't sound like you'd need another tank. You said you just have three female Platys? Once you're ready add one male that you watch chasing females at the LFS. For the sake of your female's sanity keep your ratio one male per three females. Platys are super poopers, so I also recommend some kind of small shrimp. Ghosts are really cheap and are great poop and extra food cleaners. Maybe even three or so Otos to keep down the algae. Then watch the magic fry making machines go!
Click to expand...

Thanks! I really like the idea of using shrimp. I'm not familiar with the otos but will look into it. Will definitely keep this method in mind if I decide to start actively breeding.

I picked up the first bites but The little fry still doesn't seem to be eating. At least not while I'm looking. Still just hanging around the bottom corners of the breeder net.
 
Zissou said:
I picked up the first bites but The little fry still doesn't seem to be eating. At least not while I'm looking. Still just hanging around the bottom corners of the breeder net.
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Try leaving the room light on, but turn the tank light off after you give them the first bites. That might make the lil one feel safer to move around. Remember they survive by hiding so it's instinct to move around as unseen as possible. It may not realize the other fish can't get to it. Also, I have had some that didn't seem to eat the first bites so maybe try the first bites and one crushed flake at the same time.
 
kdklovesfish said:
Try leaving the room light on, but turn the tank light off after you give them the first bites. That might make the lil one feel safer to move around. Remember they survive by hiding so it's instinct to move around as unseen as possible. It may not realize the other fish can't get to it. Also, I have had some that didn't seem to eat the first bites so maybe try the first bites and one crushed flake at the same time.
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I agree, plus you you could add some pieces of fake plants in there. This will help with his/her instinct to hide. Preferably something bushy like fern....
 
kdklovesfish said:
Try leaving the room light on, but turn the tank light off after you give them the first bites. That might make the lil one feel safer to move around.
Click to expand...

Great advice. With the tank lights off I did see it coming up to feed. May just be my imagination but it does look a little bigger today... Probably been eating all along just when im out of sight. Its Reassuring to witness it though.

I will pick up some better cover for his net too. There's a couple small fake plants in there but not much cover really.

Thank you both again for the advice and support!
 
No problem! It's really fun to be giving advice instead of getting it! And platys are about the only thing I'm confident enough to give it on. ;)

About adding more cover to it's net. I would have some plants that sit on the bottom and some that fill the entire space all the way to the top of the net. A fern like plant (or any plant that has lots of small branches or is really bushy) is a great idea because the food will stick to it and the fry can eat it as it pleases. Plus if you do decide to forgo the net next time a bigger bushy plant will add a great place for them to hide in your tank, so it's a good investment either way.
And no, it probably wasn't your imagination about it being bigger. They seem to grow really fast the first couple of weeks, then the progression to full size seems to slow down a lot.

See isn't breeding platys fun!?! :)
 
Hey guys, check out Repashy Gel Food. It's great for fry, just drop a bit in and they go mad for it. I use it in my fry tank and it's a LOT less messy than other foods. It last for 24hrs but trust me it'll be gone before that. It comes in a pouch and you mix it with hot water and pour into molds. It can be stored in the fridge(2wks) or freezer(6mths). Google it.....
 
kdklovesfish said:
How did your fry do?
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Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Unfortunately the fry I had in the breeder net didn't make it. After I took the net out and did a water change, however, I saw another fry getting chased by the momma fish. It looked like she ate him but who knows. I thought i watched her get eaten before... Maybe there is still a fry or two hiding out. I thought for sure the only fry in the tank was the one in the net. So who knows.... Big fish seem to be doing well. Thanks for checking up :)
 
Zissou said:
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Unfortunately the fry I had in the breeder net didn't make it. After I took the net out and did a water change, however, I saw another fry getting chased by the momma fish. It looked like she ate him but who knows. I thought i watched her get eaten before... Maybe there is still a fry or two hiding out. I thought for sure the only fry in the tank was the one in the net. So who knows.... Big fish seem to be doing well. Thanks for checking up :)
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear that. At least you'll be more prepared for the next batch......
 
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